After so many “lockdown” and “pandemic” albums, it’s a nice change to hear a life-affirming “end-of-lockdown” record…Hunter Complex was so relieved to start returning to normal that he invited friends of his from all around to world to contribute their skills to his Airports And Ports (BURNING WITCHES RECORDS BWR071) record. “Normal” for HC personally means travel, concerts, and just being around people – all of which gave him new energy for this current project as he opened his black book and started to ring up musicians. Pianist / keyboard genius Alexander Hawkins is here, likewise trumpeter Aquiles Navarro from Irreversible Entanglements and flautist Kat Epple, from Emerald Web. There’s also some guitar work from Justin Sweatt and field recordings from Oscar Polack. The core of the album remains the work of Hunter Complex, i.e. Lars Meijer, a Dutch veteran active since the late 1980s, who has worked his way through several genres including synth-pop, lo-fi, electro-acoustic improv and electronica (and we’ve heard him before on Heat and Open Sea). Airports And Ports is to me very suggestive of “travel” music and movie soundtracks, although Luke Insect’s cover art of a container ship may be influencing one’s thoughts in that direction…HC self-consciously attempts to emulate earlier records and genres from the past, including New Age, krautrock, 1980s synth music, but then cleverly conceals his traces, without requiring that the listener acknowledges any of this. HC manages to avoid lapsing into pastiche and stops short of evoking specific sources, such as BBC TV incidental music or brutalist architecture icons. There’s also much to enjoy in his “bright” synthesised sounds and his light melodies. Note also the clever mock-Japanese OBI on the cover. Available in coloured vinyl. (20/09/2022)
Lovely instrumentals from Pierre-Yves Martel on his cassette tape Weird Studies Vol. 2 (CRS-002). This Canadian fellow plays synths, bass guitar, pedal steel and lap steels guitars, supported by Olivier Fairfield (drums and synth percussion) and Philippe Lauzier on woodwinds. 10 mysterious tunes emanate from the red shell with its abstract art cover created by Thierry Azam. Montreal player Martel (and likewise Lauzier) have been showing up in these pages for over ten years now, mostly appearing in an improvisation / modern composition context, but these odd performances feel slightly more “playful” somehow, allowing Pierre-Yves to indulge in a bit of Brian Eno styled Another Green World type anecdotal music, evoking moods and sketching scenery in miniaturist fashion, as if screening imaginary short films and soundtracking them in his lair. As you may know these charming melodies were originally created as backdrops for the Weird Studies podcast (featuring Professor Phil Ford), a forum for the discussion of unusual ideas about art and philosophy, presumably with the intention of challenging our cosy received perceptions of everything. We heard, and enjoyed, Vol 1 in this series which was released in 2021. (06/09/2022)